3/10/2014
Hello my Father,
This week has been fairy good. Almost
all the snow has melted now and it was 60 degrees on Saturday. It's really
weird now when I think 60 is hot. Tell the boys to try tongue tacos, it sounds
a whole lot worse than it actually is, trust me they're actually really tasty.
I've been working on Family History
and found both of the Dahl side Great Grandmother's Obituaries so I have made
the change. It looks like on Family Search they got combined into one person
and then were broken up by someone but not completely edited. Needless to say there
is still a lot of family history to be done. It's great work and there is still
a ton to do. I found 2 more of Grandma Dahl's ancestors. I found a Mary
Davidson and found an indexed Christening record of her with the correct
Christening date. It had her father listed but nothing else really. I went
through the index project and found 2 other Davidsons; both of the other
children were from the same city in Massachusetts (pre-USA), with really no other
information except the father's name. On the first child I looked at I found
their profile and a William Davidson (the father) but no spouse. On the second
child I found the William, a ton of children and 2 wives with a lot more information
and I was able to attach Mary to her parents.
Elder Anderson ad I are teaching a
brother and sister, they are very busy so we don't get to see them very often.
They work and go to school so it's a little hard. The brother isn't as
interested as the sister and they're doing alright. One of the former
investigators has been coming to church again and expressed his desire to be
baptized, so we are hoping to meet with him this week and extend a baptismal date
to him. We helped a recent convert stay active, since they were starting to go
less active. We've been able to meet with many of our less active members, some
of them who were basically do not contact. We've had most of the people we've
met come to church, but we're still having problems with them coming to church consistently.
But they are getting a lot better.
Transfers are on April 2nd. I really
don't know if either of us will be transferred. Elder Anderson is dying next
transfer (aka finishing his mission). So I'm not really sure if he'll leave for
one transfer or if I'll leave and he'll get someone here for one transfer. We
both might stay, but Elder Anderson is on his 5th transfer (6-week period)
here. But at the same time in this mission missionaries are staying in their
areas longer to know and work with members better. So I have no clue.
Elder Anderson and I are planning to
tour the Capitol sometime this transfer. An English member we know here has a
friend that works for one of the congressmen who's offered to get us a special
tour of the Capitol, so we hope he can come through with it.
Everything has been going well and
I'm loving it out here.
Love,
Elder Braden Dahl
Mom,
Yes, I do like tongue tacos. We went
with a Hermano and Hermana to a taco truck and I got 2 care asada tacos and two
tongue tacos. I thought I was going to die but I picked up a taco not knowing
which one and then ate it, and I repeated that with the second taco. Tongue is
actually very good. It has a lot of flavor and brings a lot of flavor out in
the things with it. It is a little chewy but still pretty good.
My companion and I actually taught
the [family home evening] lesson [on Family History]. But Elder H was next to
me when Sister Cooke was taking a picture, so Elder H got the credit on
accident. But we did use three of your heart ribbons to "seal" a
family together and then we spoke about Family History.
In regards to Family History, my
mission is going to be trained on Family History specifically on Family Search,
so that we can help others learn to do their own Family History. (Don't worry I
already emailed the three grandparents with emails and have received responses from
all of them.) Since Family History is part of the Gospel (turning the hearts of
the children to their fathers) and not just a program or something nice that
the Church has, missionaries can use it as one of the many tools we have to
help members and investigators become more deeply converted to the Gospel of
Jesus Christ. I am in one of the 5 beta tester wards in our mission for the
training we are receiving for Family History on Family Search. Family Search
has a little bit of a learning curve to know how to do everything and how to do
it correctly. There is an open Facebook group with the lessons in a file form
so that every missionary can go at their own pace. Family Search is constantly
changing and I can think of at least 4 of the 20 lessons that were put up less
than a month ago that already have a version 2 and I know there are 3 lessons
are currently missing because they are already outdated and need to be updated.
We are getting some basic training, similar to that of a Family History
Consultant so that we can help the members do their family history and the
missionaries can confidently know the program that the church uses and be a
help to the members. We aren't changing the mission, just adding a tool to missionary
work that is really effective. During our training we are encouraged to spend
an hour a day to work on the lessons and to complete them in a timely manner.
After we finish all the lessons we wont use that much time that often to review
our Family History Training, but we are encouraged to review some of the
lessons and check for updates on Family Search occasionally; when we reach that
point. For now, every week we have to report on how many Family History
training lessons we have completed and how many Family History lessons we have
taught to others. It is an excellent part of the gospel and it really gets
people excited about their ancestry. Since Family History is the 2nd most
popular hobby in the world, it is an easy conversation piece to bring up and
isn't as scary to share with others.
I highly recommend that you start
working on Family History. I highly recommend that Dad, all 4 of my brothers,
and everyone you know start working on a family history. Our lines are not
done. I fixed Grandma's mother from her twin’s name to her actual name,
combined 2 Uncle LV's and already found 2 more of our ancestors of Family
Search in the early-mid 1700s. There is a lot of work to do. I know that it's
great to immerse yourself in.
Yesterday my companion and I sang
"Un Pobre Forastero" with Elder O at the piano for "Noche de
Música e Inspiración". We were the last number and it went really well. It
was recorded last night and we'll get a disk of the performance sometime in the
future. I think Elder Anderson had someone record it on his camera. I would
have had someone record it on my camera but recently my camera has been acting funny
and it keeps automatically shutting down and displaying something along the
lines of "a camera error was detected, will automatically shutdown,
restart E32". So it only stays on for 30 seconds or so. Anyways, I think
it went well. Sister Eyring asked us to perform it again next Sunday for
"Why I Believe" as the special musical number. So next week we'll be
performing it again, but in English.
 | ||
| Elder Braden Dahl (2nd from right) w/ 2 Elders & 2 Ward Members |
Love,
Elder Braden Dahl
No comments:
Post a Comment